Production of chocolate-based articles in solidifying form, such as chocolate chips or chocolate chunks, generally requires the execution of a series of processing steps under predetermined conditions to ensure that the final chocolate-based articles have a desired appearance and texture. It is well known in the art that chocolate contains solid particles dispersed throughout a fat matrix, wherein the term “fat” may include both cocoa butter and milk fat. The state of the chocolate fat can change depending on the temperature of the environment. For example, in room temperature, chocolate is in a solid state, while when heated above a certain temperature threshold point, it can be melted into a molten or liquid state so that it flows as a fluid. The liquid state of the chocolate is reversible and will return back to a solid state when cooled back below the threshold temperature point.
In view of the above, a typical production method for producing chocolate-based articles in solidifying form may start by completely melting the chocolate fat to a liquid state. Once the chocolate fat has been melted, the next step may involve the tempering of the chocolate, wherein small stable crystals are formed through the chocolate fat in the liquid state. The chocolate tempering step, although not always necessary, ensures that the chocolate solidifies with a desired shiny and smooth surface. After melting and tempering, the liquid chocolate mass may then be deposited into mould trays or directly onto another surface, which is typically cooled in a temperature and humidity-controlled environment, such as a cooling chamber. The cooling process may typically take anywhere between 10 minutes to 40 minutes depending on the type of chocolate-based articles produced and may require that the liquid chocolate mass is transported through a number of cooling zones to prevent sudden changes in temperature and humidity. Such changes may cause the destabilization of the chocolate butter crystals formed during the tempering process and may result in the chocolate-based article having an undesired appearance and texture. Typically the chocolate mass is transported through the cooling chamber by means of a conveyor belt, which transports the liquid chocolate mass along the different cooling zones in the cooling chamber before it is collected at an exit point. The dimensions and speed of the conveyor belt together with the cooling chamber conditions are adapted such that during transportation of the chocolate mass along the different cooling zones the liquid chocolate mass cools substantially uniformly throughout.
Conventional systems for producing chocolate-based articles are well known in the art. Such systems may comprise a transportation system arranged to carry the liquid chocolate mass onto a top load carrying side of a conveyor belt along the different cooling zones of the cooling chamber. Considering that a cooling process may take anywhere between 10 to 40 minutes, the conveyor belt of the conventional system needs to be dimensioned accordingly in order to ensure that the finished chocolate-based articles have the desired appearance and texture. Due to the considerably long cooling process, conventional systems for producing chocolate-based articles may require a conveyor belt having a large area overhead. As a result using a conventional system may limit the total number of systems that can work in parallel on a production facility of given dimensions, thereby negatively affecting the production throughput of this production facility. Furthermore, the size of the system would inevitably determine the size of the production facility needed, thus a larger system would require a larger facility that would incur a higher cost.
US2008/0274241 relates to a system for producing chocolate articles in a retail unit. The system uses a rapid cooling process for cooling the liquid chocolate mass faster, which has as an effect that the overall dimensions of the system can be reduced so that it fits in a retail unit space. However, cooling the liquid chocolate too rapidly, as previously discussed, may destabilise the crystal in the chocolate fat leading to a finished chocolate-based article that does not meet the production requirements.